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THE HAPPY TEACHER 



THE 

HAPPY TEACHER 



BY 

MELVILLE B. ANDERSON 



NEW YORK 
B. W. HUEBSCH 

1910 



'/ 



Copyright, 1910, 
Bt B. W. Huebsch 



CCLA2T8747 



TO 

THE MEN AKD WOMEN WHO 

WERE MY STUDENTS 

AND THROUGH WHOM I WAS A LEARNER 

MDCCCLXXVII— MCMX 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

This poem was read before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society at Leland Stanford Junior University, 
May 21, 1910, at which time the author com- 
menced emeritus. 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Who is the Happy Teacher? — Represent 
In his dimensions like himself, O Muse, 
His very effigy, his lineament 
Essential: yet, as painters ever use. 
Portray the happy guide of noble youth 
Ideally, — that is with inward truth! 

Thus without due premeditance 
Invoking with rash utterance 
The Muse (presumptuous son of Earth, 
Daring to summon as a slave 
The Goddess of celestial birth! ), 
I head my pinnace to the wave; 
But, look you! not a zephyr blows 
To clear us from the lee of prose: 
[9] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



"Be brisk there, hearties, man the oar. 
And make a shift to pull off shore! " 

Lo! scarcely under steerage- way, 
I feel a presence at the prow, — 
A thrilling voice commands me "Stay! '* 
We drop the oars, our heads we bow. 
"Follow," the Goddess bids, "the trace 
Of him who utter'd nothing base; 
Let Wordsworth be thy pilot, for 
He sang the Happy Warrior.'* 

"Be it far from thee to advise 
Me emulate that lofty song, 

Muse! — What verse-craft could dis- 

guise 

My fragile foil'd against his strong? 

Ah! cap and bells should crown th* em- 
prise. 

1 cannot string Ulysses* bow, 

My grasp too weak, my reach too low." 

[10] 



HOW TO FOLLOW WORDSWORTH 

The Muse's answer how rehearse 

In rime thus unheroic? — Terse 

And stern to this effect she spake: 

**What boots it weigh the form of verse? 

Doth not the soul the body make? 

Deep counsel with thy Spirit take! 

Thence streams the right afflatus, — storm 

Of living utterance: for form 

(Her voice was edged with some disdain) 

If any poet there remain 

Yet uninform'd with instinct, — well. 

Let him aspire to doggerel! " 

The message, — if a little tart 
Tonic the more, — I take to heart; 
With trembling hand I string the lyre. 
And, prompted by that sneer, aspire: 
Touchstone will chuckle, if he hark it, 
"Right butterwomen's rank to market! " 

Beginning, plunge we if you please. 
As Horace bids, in medias reSf — 

[11] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Words signifying Quite at random. 
As easy writers understand 'em; 
And if we treat, not as we ought to, 
Of what the Happy Teacher '11 not do, 
The Muse may later bid us pen her 
A rime less negative in tenor. 

He will not break the bruised reed 
Which feebly lifts its little spire; 
Nor will he quench the smoking 
flax 
Where Genius yet may burst to fire; 
The hungry he'll not underfeed, 
Weak appetite not overtax. 

He will not strive to loose or bind 
The bands that starr'd Orion wove; 

Precept may shake, not sever these 
Ethereal cables knit with love: 
Sweet influences of the mind 
Immortal as the Pleiades. 

[12] 



FUNDAMENTALS 



Counter to Mother Nature's course 
Task not the heart, nor cudgel brain 

Genial propensity to quell; 
Thou 'It have thy labor for thy pain: 
Inevitable thy remorse, 

O sire of Richard Feverell 

His basic principle thus flows 
When set to music; but to those 
WTio treat the soul as a machine. 
Small reason in the rime is seen. 
Their schools and systems, all and some, 
Seem founded on the axiom 
That gear of clock-work can direct 
The engine of the intellect. 
They deem, like alchemists of old. 
To find in their retorts the gold, 
Blind to the true transmuting stone, 
Only to Nature's bantlings known. 
The spirit bloweth and is still: 
Come, harness it to turn our mill! 

[13] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



No teacher, but mechanic tool, 
Who, when the angel moves aright 
The waters of Bethesda's pool. 
Would thermograph them by some rule 
Of R^umur or Fahrenheit. 

Our happy Guide, of Socrates' 
Athletic school, distrusts degrees. . 
WTiy dub the graduated ass 
Whose ne 'plus ultra is to pass, 
Honorificabilitudinitas ? 
O runner, fling aside the crutch! 
Is his monition; overmuch 
Our Capuan schools abound in aids. 
Diplomas, titles, badges, grades: 
Why titillate with bait so slight 
The hungry edge of appetite? 
Why tempt the torpid? Fat of rib 
Is fat of wit: shut up the crib! 

When from the mint the gold of Burns, 

[14] 



FRIPPERY 



Crisp with the guinea-stamp, returns, 

The gold's the gold, we understand, — 

Yet how the better for the brand? 

When did promotion come to knowledge 

From furbelows aflounce at college? 

Amid the courtiers glittering 

Stood rusty Franklin less a king? 

To boys leave bagatelles! Pray, what 

Avail'd the doctor's hood to Watt? 

If, pamper 'd like an Oxford don, 

The cause that made him lean forgone. 

And dubb'd D. D., how more divine 

Had been the Poet Florentine? 

Shall starry Galileo trail 

Initials like the comet's tail? 

What proud abbreviation beats 

In splendor the curt name of Keats? 

How choicelier had Horace writ 

Could he have sign'd his odes D. Litt. ? 

And what diploma, pray, invent 

For Master William Shakespeare, Gent ? 

[15] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Commensals of the Table Round, 
Careless they sit about the board 

With bread of angels whitely spread, 
Churl, Seneschal, and Knight and 
Lord; 
Invisibly the best is crown'd: 

WTiere Arthur sits, there is the head. 

Ah! wouldst thou yeoman service do 
In that Republic where the great. 
Through strength in large endeavor 
spent. 
Achieve the Freedom of the State, 
Put childish things away, — pursue 

"The things that are more excel- 
lent.'* 

No flowery phraser is our hero. 
Like Seneca (they say) to Nero; 
Teaches to be a self -commander. 
As Aristotle, Alexander. 
[16] 



MANHOOD 



He suckles (for the teacher good 
Begins at least with babyhood! ) 
With milk of humankindness Byron; 
And, like Thessalians coach 'd by Chiron 
(That pedagogue quadrupedantic), 
His young barbarians grow less frantic, 
Their college yells and track events 
Well intersperst with wit and sense; 
While football stars, those padded giants, 
To letters condescend, and science. 

Unbought, unmortgaged, unsubdued 
To the commercial age's mood. 
He nourishes ambition higher 
Than that of Carthage and of Tyre; 
Nor presbyter nor pontiff he 
In temple of Publicity; 
Withholds from king of street and pit 
The tax that pays the hypocrite; 
Impracticable to refuse 
To truck and trim for revenues; 
[17] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



And setting little store by knowledge 
Of arts to advertise his college. 

Seldom his heart upon his sleeve 

He wears: not careful to relieve 

That organ of its perilous stuff 

By cuppings, innocent enough. 

Of frequent, brief communication 

To Athenceum or The Nation, 

As who should say, *'The deuce is in*t 

Unless I air myself in print! " 

Leaves unperturb'd the spirits vext 

That squeak and gibber through the 

text 
Shakespearean, — such matters nice 
Best left to Furness, Wright, and Dyce. 
Why prod our preciotis sqimre of sense, 
Not senselesse of the bob, from thence 
To shed upon confusion still 
No light, but darkness visible? 
*'Let bends adomings stand," he cries, 

[18] 



"THE BRAN OF SCHOLARSHIP" 

^^ An arm- gaunt steeds runaway es eyes. 
To his owne scandle, — be it so; 
IVoo't drinke up Esill? — Goodness, no! 
Who rashly hawk from handsaw plucks 
Gets finger-bitten: crux is crux." 

**Ah! hold not to the hungry lip 
For bread the bran of scholarship, 
Nor to the thirsty spirit thus 
Commend the cup of Tantalus, 
And out upon those doctors who 
What wiser Shakespeare does, undo! 
'Budge doctors of the stoic fur,' 
Who with their paltry glosses blur 
The authentic writing on the wall, 
The soul's fair parchment so bescrawl 
With futile warrant, fool's behest. 
That scripture turns to palimpsest. 
And indignation fires the verse 
When bungling meddlers, learning's 
curse, 

[19] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Refashion youth's diviner feature 
In the smug image of the teacher. " 
A stronger breath was in that strain, 
But now I pluck the string again. 
Recalling Milton's patience scanty 
With wolves within the fold, — how 

Dante 
Turn'd upside down the pride of place 
Of Clement and of Boniface. 
Those Pastors — 

"Stop! " the Goddess cried, 

*'Thy wit to madness is allied! 

Why shouldst thou fare so far afield? 

Does not the time example yield? 

The elder poets why invoke 

To lift our spiritual yoke? 

Sir Philip put the case aright: 

*Fool, look within thy heart and write! ' 

And wouldst thou be a satirist 

Of prejudices that persist 

[20] 



DISCOMMODITY OF SATIRE 

In education, dying hard. 

Presume not to escape unscarr'd. 

Shalt see the friend become the foe; 

Thy fame a football, to and fro 

Bandied; no longer free to live 

The scholar's life contemplative, 

Thou must exchange for rancorous 

strife 
The sweet amenities of life. 
And in the arena force perforce 
Must battle amid bawlings hoarse; 
Perchance beneath calumnious stain 
Must die, — best effort spent in vain, 
For when was ever satire found 
To rail the seal from off the bond? 
Dost thou conceit thee to be steel'd 
To bear the brunt of such a field? 
Friend, let me whisper to thee that 
Thou'rt not the bard to bell the cat, 
For none has rim'd me such an opus 
Since Chaucer stinted of Sir Thopas: 

[21] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



False cadences and meter cramp. 
Allusion smelling of the lamp: 
Thy Muse should be a stocking blue I 
Now, as I point the path, pursue.'* 

Then to my song the Gk>ddess lent 
Numbers and nobler argument: — 



[22] 



n 

Who is the Happy Teacher one would 

choose 
To mould the plastic mind? — began the 

Muse. 
One first, to speak with Bacon, who, a 

brave 
Iconoclast of idols of the cave, 
Well knows the mind's insidious perils, 

knows 
To front undauntedly the inward foes; 
Who, since the young his prime attention 

claim. 
To make himself mature directs his 

aim; 
WTien most his commerce is with chil- 
dren, then 
Efficient most among his fellow-men; 
Scornful of badges, decorations, toys 

[23] 



• 
THE HAPPY TEACHER 



That prove men oft more puerile than 

boys; 
And smiling at each shibboleth and fad 
That show again much learning maketh 

mad. 

Wide as his commerce with his fellows, so 
World-wide his intercourse with those 

who know, 
Sages and bards of many lands: these 

three 
For choice, — Greece, England, Italy; 
The calm free soul of Gk)ethe; and in 

France 
Montaigne, who smiles away intolerance; 
Nor schooling mean at home here had he 

won 
From Franklin, Hawthorne, Whitman, 

Emerson. 
Happily born to manners, though but 

rude, 

[24] 



"THE HARVEST OF A QUIET EYE'* 

Sincere, he nourishes in solitude 
Instincts undreamt of in our social state 
Which civilizes but to enervate. 
Deep in the wilderness he steels his nerve 
The wild-brook's temper, strenuous to 

serve 
At call. Forsaking academic ease 
Reads vagrantly in Nature's libraries, 
A wandering scholar; from the evening 

sky 
Reaping **the harvest of a quiet eye.'* 
Surprising beauty finds an open door 
Into his senses, custom-blunt before; 
And with the quicken 'd vision of the 

brain. 
Genius beholds within the forest-fane 
Wing'd acolytes with ministry divine 
Light UD the candelabra of the pine. 

What though courageous, yet no man of 
blood, 

[25] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



He murders not the natives of the wood, 
Begrudging to no life beneath the sun 
Its harmless day: a fowler without gun, 
A fisher innocent of rod and hook, 
Friends with the citizens of bush and 
brook. 

From close communion with the forest 

clan 
Return 'd, he better serves his fellow-man; 
Imbues the young whom he instructs to 

bless, 
With holy pity, tender thoughtfulness: 
With reverence they look to him, and 

love, 
As having bread to eat they know not of. 

That art itself is nature, Shakespeare, who 
Deriv'd his sovran art from Nature, knew. 
And so by Nature tutor 'd and by Art, 
Our Master, catholic in taste and heart, 

[26] 



"THE ART ITSELF IS NATURE" 

Admires the virtue of the Greek no less 
Perchance, than Mediaeval holiness; 
A fugue of Bach, the forest wind or bird, 
Sad Beethoven, and singing river, heard 
With equal passion; truth and beauty he 
Sees blent in exquisite economy; 
Sees oak and obelisk and painted cliff 
All historied with speaking hieroglyph; 
Cell, feeler, hoof, claw, cunning hand en- 
scroll 
The legend beautiful that ends in soul. 

Such readings prompt his genius to stir 
Receptive hearts, a large interpreter 
Of letters, gathering from brae and brook 
Some pregnant comment bearing on the 

book, — 
The book, notation of the music heard 
First from the mother's tender lip, the 

Word: 
The word, a document wherein survives 

[27] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



The record of a myriad myriad lives; 
The word, the true foundation of the 

school. 
Logician's and philosopher's sole tool, 
The matrix of the idea, which, having 

not, 
We fail to level with the Hottentot: 
If there be any yet conceited wise 
In their own generation, who despise 
The word, be they to alien tongue con- 

fin'd. 
To learn the weakness of the wordless 

mind I 
The word, the pigment of the poet's art. 
The word, that speaks the fulness of the 

heart. 
The winged word, like arrow to the goal. 
Stinging to action the lethargic soul, 
The current word, the idiom of the street, 
The coin of quick exchange with all we 

meet; 

[28] 



"WORDS, WORDS, WORDS" 

The fitting word, high culture's final test; 
The pungent word of graphic tale and 

jest, 
The flavoring lemon in the punch of 

wit, 
So apt, — and yet so easy not to hit! 

But why should we, inheriting the tongue 

That Lincoln spake, the word that Shel- 
ley sung, 

The word that out of Milton's mintage 
sprang, 

Debase the coinage with the dross of 
slang. 

Whose pinchbeck lustre all is second- 
hand, — 

Not coin but counters, current with the 
band 

Of slavish spirits, to those chains resign*d 

That cramp the imperial stature of the 
mind! 

[29] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



I sing the word beginning once with 

God, 
Milestone of backward road from man to 

clod, 
The word ''whose fountain who shall 

tell?" and whence 
Pours Homer's ample flood of eloquence; 
The ballad word which, sung by crowder 

blind, 
Thrill'd like a trumpet noble Sidney's 

mind; 

The homely word of Paston Letters old, ; 
Wherein men pray, blaspheme, make 

love, and scold. 
Limning the features, as in sculpture 

rude, 
That witness to our common brother- 
hood; 
The liquid word whose music Chaucer 

woke 
In that vernacular of English folk; 

[30] 



"I SING THE WORD" 



The living word, redeeming still from 

death 
*'The spacious times of great Elizabeth": 
Wipe but the dust from parchment and 

from roll, 
The word leaps forth to life, a thing of 

soul. 
Working such wonders as, when rust and 

damp 
W^ere rubb'd away, the Genius of the 

Lamp. 

Hail then the word: the talisman, the 
key. 

Divining wand and open sesame, 

Blood pulsing through one mental lin- 
eage. 

Seal of one plastic spirit's heritage! 

The word, the fossil dead? Nay, these 
outlive 

Organic life, of lease so fugitive: 

[31] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



And as from fossil teeth, forgot of Time, 
For Cuvier woke the monsters of the 

prime, 
Awakes, at runic Hempl's charm, the 

tongue 
The Etrurian shades forgot when Time 

was young. 

Thus Nature, Wisdom, Poetry combine 
In words to touch the soul to issues 

fine. 
And as perspective art the landscape 

shows. 
The Master's pencil round the lesson 

throws 
Color, relief of distance, atmosphere. 
His virtuous euphrasy can purge and 

clear 
The inner vision for effect and cause; 
He points Imagination's lens, and 

draws 

[32] 



THE PLAY-HOUSE 



Into concernment close the past, the far: 
Turn but the glass, — the near becomes a 

star! 
The customary grows miraculous, 
WTiile Plutarch's heroes eat and drink 

with us. 

A mighty Play-House is the Universe 
Wherein we all our little parts rehearse: 
For footlights, planets, — suns the chan- 
deliers; 
The overture, the music of the spheres; 
The curtain is the all-concealing night: 
It rises, and the scene is infinite; 
Actors, spectators we; intrigues unfold 
Significant; we in the Deed behold 
A lineage unsubjected to the tomb 
Stretch out, like Banquo's, to the crack 

of doom; 
Incident, burgeoning from incident, 
Into the vast economy is blent; 

[S3] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



The villain foils the hero, and the theme 
Draws to a climax; is the Author's scheme 
Comic or tragical? We can but know 
The tragic moment of our present woe, 
Dimly forebode some dread catastrophe; 
Till, pity and terror purging us, we see 
Perchance with eye prophetic; hear the 

chime 
Heralding from the horologe the Time 
Foretold by seer and poet: life no more 
An aimless struggle in the dark; no war. 
No fetters but for selfishness; with awe 
Hear proclamation of the reign of Law, 
Deeming we faintly hear from far above 
The golden wedding-bells of Law and 

Love. 

So seeing, hearing, would he not, our 

Youth, 
'*Live resolute in wholeness, beauty, 

truth"? 

[34] 



KATHARSIS 



And in what after-apathy could choose 
A scene less haloed with ideal hues? 
So let each see and live, in view of All 
Until the Author lets the curtain fall! 



[35] 



m 

She paus'd, and holding forth the lyre, 
Bended her flashing eye on mine. 
"Dear Muse, far from thee to require 
My song to follow: more condign 
Were punishment on me for this, 
Than fell on blinded Thamyris! " 
So pray'd I. **When thy voice outspake 
That prophecy, my heart was stirr'd; 
Do thou again the chords awake, — 
Let mellower music now be heard. 
Against the night that glooms the Pole 
Auroral banners are unfurl' d: 
Fixt be the waverings, — my soul 
Stares blankly on the changing world. 
The curtain of the coming age 
Be parted for a moment! Purge 
The inward eye to view a stage 
WTiere Love shall be the dramaturge. 

[36] 



DE PROFUNDIS 



Reeling and dizzy here below 

A starless sky, we look above 

For light in vain: how can we know 

That Law shall ever mate with Love? 

With microscope we dimly scan 

One universe, — with telescope 

The other, — spying out for man 

What satisfying grounds of hope? 

For man here, like the burrowing mole 

With level aims and inchlong views, 

What vista of the mighty whole 

May be without the heavenly Muse? 

Tell, is the Happy Teacher blind 

To toil for human betterment? 

For Hope what warrant may he find?'* 

To my petition gave consent 
The Gk)ddess, with a kindly smile: 
And though the rime indignant rang 
With hoarse invective for awhile. 
Yet sweetlier afterward she sang: 

[37] 



IV 

*'0 BREASTS, where are ye, of all life the 

source?" 
Thus, with poor Faust, while Trade pur- 
sues her course, 
I hear the unborn generations groan. 
Who, crying out for bread, receive a 

stone. 
No longer underneath the forest thatch 
Flow waters (but the smoker has his 

match ! ) ; 
A sewer in the shrunken river's bed 
Festers (what then? the hungry press is 

fed: 
I venture no allusion, speaking thus. 
Comparison would be malodorous). 
Or else the torrent, mocking human toil. 
Sweeps to the sea the harvest and the 
soil. 

[38] 



TREASON TO POSTERITY 

Has Earth no vengeance, have the Heav- 
ens no curse 
For him who by destruction fills his 

purse? 
Let actuaries calculate the worth 
Of him who, dying, poorer leaves the 

earth: 
Carve the hard face, that coming man 

may see 
The cruel features of his enemy! 
Hark! by the noble soul distinctly heard. 
Out of those marble lips escapes the Word 
That sacrifice of self for those unborn 
Is worship which the gods will never 

scorn. 
Who makes the world his oyster, leaves 

it dead 
And done with, soon as ever he has fed, — 
Who sucks the juice and chucks away the 

shell, — 
Should find no fellowship except in Hell 
[39] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Where Dante found the traitors winter- 
ing,— 
Congenial spirits for the Lumber King. 

Ofttimes our Master, haunted by the 
theme 

Of our unnatural unsocial scheme. 

With corded brow forwent his wonted 
cheer, 

Foreboding Revolution drawing near: 

Cast to the melting-pot in vision saw 

The time-worn brazen tablets of the law; 

Religion's reverend landmarks overborne; 

The metes and bounds of mine and thine 
uptorn; 

Fai*" arts of man's long, long endeavor, 
melt 

In one black hell-broth. This, he deeply 
felt, 

Is fault of those who throng the drawing- 
room 

[40] 



"THE MELTING-POT'' 



Of Empress Grundy, and applaud her 

doom 
On all who dare to think; the fault of 

those 
WTio batten upon superstition, foes 
Of all experiment; of those who exalt 
Their fortunes upon ruin'd hopes; the 

fault 
Of great industrial captains, skill 'd to 

roll 
Up dividends by scaling down the soul; 
Of statesmen strenuous to make the most 
Of public taste for moral tea and toast; 
Of Aarons with lawn sleeves wherein to 

laugh 
When bows the world before the Golden 

Calf; 
Of priests who point the penitent rich a 

road 
Around the Needle's Eye, — the poor a 

code 

[41] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Of iron, rubricated Thou Shalt Not: 
These fan the flame beneath the melting- 
pot! 

Beyond such cataclysm, by faith he saw 
Freedom arisen, born of Inward Law, — 
It is unlawful, bard and prophet say. 
That he who knows, should other law 

obey! 
An age draws on of equal chance for all. 
Knowledge and gentle manners general, 
When Science lengthens life, — a peaceful 

death 
The lot of every being drawing breath, — 
The sting of death gone with the ghost of 

sin; 
Few courts of law, because the law within 
Prescribes the golden rule of equal rights, 
And Freedom quells destructive appe- 
tites; 
In wiser mating man and woman blent 

[42j 



A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE 

Harmonious like voice and instrument; 
Age when emancipated womankind 
No more a serpent in the garden find. 
No angel brandishing a sword of fire 
Above the Paradise of Heart's Desire; 
When common purposes, affection high 
Alone shall consecrate the nuptial tie; 
And parenthood shall know but one dis- 
grace, — 
To breed a child not bettering the race. 
Such vision through the gate of horn he 

saw, 
Elxulting in the true Utopia. 

"What," some will ask, "what of the life 

to come?'* 
He, like the kings of modern thought is 

dumb, 
Never affirming what he cannot know. 
Still less denying, for he hopes it so. 
To theologic warfare calls a truce, — 

[43] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



A different Bannockburn demands its 

Bruce, 
Blares forth to us another trumpet-call; 
On harder quest must go Sir Percival, 
By consecration to the race attest 
He guards the Holy Grail within his 

breast. 
No follower and no flatterer of the crowd. 
Not foremost in the synagogue is bow'd 
Our Teacher, giving alms unseen of 

men, — 
Shouts not upon the housetop his Amen I 
Yet when Hosannah to the Lord on High, 
With voice of many waters people cry. 
Than he, none feels the common impulse 

more: 
But, praying, goes within, and shuts the 

door. 
Deep in the heart he keeps a Holy Shrine: 
There looks he, not in vain, for the Di- 
vine. 

[44] 



ENTHEOS 



As one who owns a little plot of ground, 
Owns underneath as far as drill can sound, 
And downward howsoever far he go, 
Comes on fresh veins upwelling from be- 
low, 
While farther down, conceal 'd from hu- 
man sight. 
Are springs of power and riches infinite: 
Thus underneath our little minds we hold. 
Deep under deep, resources manifold, 
And man (all men, beneath their surface 

selves) 
Antaeus-like, grows stronger as he delves; 
If any one a deeper stratum tap. 
We term him Genius; could you mine 

and sap 
And tunnel till the deep of deeps you 

trod, — 
What then? You syllable sublimely, — 

God! 
Thence, in the solitude, an effluence 

[45] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Streams up from fountains far beneath 

the sense. 
Monitions, from the roots of Being sent, 
Of issues growing to Divine Event, 
Impermanenee becoming permanent. 



[46] 



Such was the gospel, the good news 

Prophetical that sang the Muse; 

While yet the chords were sounding on, 

I lookt, and lo! the Muse was gone. 

So left, I cannot fitly word 

The mood whereto my heart was stirred; 

For who am I that I take up 

The lyre the Heavenly Muse let drop? 

No harmony could I command, — 

The strings would snap beneath my hand. 

Wanting the Muse, — these verses show 

it,— 
One may be rimer, never Poet; 
Nor do the wise the proverb scorn 
That poets are not made, but born; 
Nor yet that other commonplace, 
How bards their birthright oft disgrace I 

[47] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



To voices strange the Goddess grants 

The burden of her utterance: 

Half -frenzied voices, Blake or Smart, 

Their lucid madness passing art; 

Weak Coleridge or weak Rousseau; 

Sick Heine, Leopardi, Poe; 

Decadent Villon or Verlaine; 

Witness wild Byron's wondering strain,- 

"And must thy lyre, so long divine. 

Degenerate into hands like mine?" 

Her burden trembling in his voice. 

The saddest poet may rejoice; 

But when the Muse has passed along. 

The sweetest harp is left unstrung. 

So Peter, James, and John of yore 
Saw God transfigured; fishermen 
Poor, humble, had they been before. 
And after seem'd the like again; 
Beheld no more the raiment bright 
That in such hour the Master wore, 

[48] 



PALINODE 



Heard talking with him on the height 

Moses, Elijah, nevermore: 

But oh! the wonder and the awe 

Of what that once they heard and saw! 

Before the wonder cease to thrill 
(Hark to the cadence sounding still! ) 
Friends, pardon, while in minor mode. 
The rimer hums his Palinode. 
Alas! it is the Poet's shame 
That what he dream'd, he ne'er be- 
came. 
**I see, approve the good, the worse 
I follow, — " So the famous verse 
Doth moralize Medea's woes; 
And so our Portia, but in prose, — 
*'Were it as easy do the best 
As know it, — " wherefore quote the rest? 
A modern instance, — what we knew 
And lov'd, we mostly fail'd to do. 
A truant, I in Nature's school 
[49] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Made no exception to the rule 
That thought no master-key to act is, 
Nor precept magnet to right practise; 
Could not through all my course con- 
trol 
The needle wavering from the Pole; 
Unlike the Priest who, poets say, 
"Allur'd to Heaven and led the way! '* 

To melancholy thought a truce! 
The Poet finds a better use 
In Parable, and finer grace. 
Recall the Athenian torch-race, — 
The race of the lampadephore: 
The start was from the fire-god's door; 
The goal. Acropolis; the night 
Moonless; the runners took their light 
From the Promethean altar: then 
Between the craning files of men, 
Along the glittering portico 
(But softly, softly here, because 

[50] 



LAMPADEPHORIA 



Of certain whiffs and gusty flaws 1 ), 
Through street, through Agora they 

go 
Racing, intent to keep the torch 
Symbolic, burning to the last; 
And while the foremost nears the hill. 
The hindmost, not the least in skill, 
Is striding by the Painted Porch, 
The flame defending with the finger. 
And curbs himself, appears to linger 
Reluctant, lest he run too fast: 
For, should the cresset, flickering dim, 
Be puft out by a counterblast. 
Runner, however fleet of limb. 
Halts, — Nemesis o'ertaking him! 

A band of seven, avoiding this, 
Run up the steep Acropolis, 
Steadily mounting high and higher; 
The Propylaea reflect the fire 
Until the polisht statues bright 

[51] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Gleam out like specters through the 

night. 
*'Ah! could one name the sevenfold 

crew! " 
"Look! now there are but five in 

view! '* 
The others? ask the treacherous wind! 
"Now four, — now three, — and now but 

two!" 
But look again! One far behind 
Who crept by wall, and nurst his 

breath. 
Safeguarding still the flame from death, 
Now darts from hiding, grasps the 

chance. 
Gains on the foremost, — who (perchance 
Already clutching for the meed 
Which not so lightly Nike grants! ) 
Was flagging when supreme the need 
To run, to run! — and with a burst 
Of speed, behold, the last, now first, 

[52] 



"—THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE" 

Flashes along with lamp not dull, 

Enters the Gateway beautiful, 

And stands: — to him award the crown. 

Moral? What boot to write it down? — 

The race not always to the swift! 

To him who guards of gifts the gift, 

The fire, the fire Promethean 

The pitying Titan flung to man. 

The sacred torch, the mystic sign 

Of that within we call divine. 

Until the shining goal is won. 

To him the guerdon be, "Well done! " 

Oh! could some brave lampadephore 
Of tougher sinew, stouter soul. 

Swift flaming forward where I 
swerv'd. 
Have borne my cresset to the goal, — 
Amid the paean's wild uproar 

What praise had such as I deserv'd? 

[53] 



THE HAPPY TEACHER 



Few trace the record dim beneath 
The statue of the victor set, 

Where on the very plinth they write 
The name of one men best forget. 
Who, though the winner of no wreath, 
Once held the sacred torch alight. 



Explicit 



[54j 



)EC 31 1910 








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